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Month: May 2010

Hubby is trying to fix the A/C. He is a bit on the frustrated side at the moment, which I can totally understand at the moment. For myself I am trying very hard to stay out of his way and just letting the world and my body relax as much as is possible because my body, especially the left leg, just doesn’t like me at the moment. Hopefully the physical therapy that is slated to commence this next week will help me begin to correct that problem, although it is going to be painful, or so I’ve heard.

Since there is even more pain on the horizon, I am planning even more knitting. Currently I am working on a dishcloth that was already supposed to have been mailed off. Unfortunately, when migraines are really bad you can’t knit. I know because I have discovered the varying degrees of migraines and exactly what you can and cannot do when you are having one of those suckers! However, with pain and its varying degrees, there appears to be much you can do to distract yourself and make the days better. So, I am planning more knitting projects as well as some much needed sewing projects, and am really going to just listen to my body and sleep when the body decides it is time to do so, because otherwise I am just going to remain exhausted on a semi-continuous basis.

Sometimes it feels as if I am not taking full steps forward, just tiny little jerky ones, but forward is still the direction I reckon I’m still moving, so this is good.

The fingerless mitts for Mary Beth are finished! These are the mitts that actually got me motivated for doing something once I was out of the hospital.

She is a weaver and owner of The Weft Handed Weaver site and blog where she is on the adventure of weaving and making the an authentic 18th Century cloak! I personally am finding this very interesting and exciting.

She asked me to make her the fingerless mitts because in the winter she cannot work well because her hands get cold. Since she does not knit, she asked me to knit her some fingerless mitts.

I was, first of all, hugely flattered, and second of all, I was thrilled to have something to knit in general. It was just the perfect project.

The yarn wasn’t even a problem because Mary Beth had even spun some home spun in sock weight and had said she would provide me with equal amount of the yarn she had given me to knit the mitts in, which was a nice big ball of at least 50 grams at the very least! There is enough left over of the ball to do another set of mitts, which I am sincerely thinking of doing or adding it to the beautiful white she has given me for my own set of mitts for this winter.

Since Mary Beth is a “living museum” person, I did some research and came as close to an authentic 18th-19th Century set of working fingerless mitts as possible. Several articles I read debated on whether or not the fingers were “separate” or not, so I decided to just leave them free; if she decides she would like to have the fingers separate I can do this in less than 10 minutes time.

Because of this request, however, I have come up with some questions on my own:

What did women use to keep their heads warm, especially their ears, in winter for the inside of the drafty houses?

How many knitted items were used during the 18th and 19th Centuries for warmth for the lower, middle, and upper classes?

How affordable was yarn and fleece during these time periods and did everyone knit? Were there thriving yarn stores or did everyone just have a sheep or two in the back yard (which I simply can’t see since even then sheep were expensive to keep I would imagine)?

Of course, I am going to have to do a little more research into these questions and see what answers I can come up with because there should be answers for these questions you know.

I have decided that tomorrow I am going to plant as many seeds as I can in the pots I currently have and just hope for the best. The Hubby doesn’t have much clue about how to garden and even though I tell him that we need to get the seeds into the ground now as well as the plants he says “not this weekend”, which is annoying, but there is nothing I can do about that. So, I’m going to get as much done as I can as much into the dirt as possible.

On a good, positive note, the mitts are completed except for the sewing up part and weaving in the ends. I still haven’t done that yet, nor decided on what the next knitting project is going to be, but, at least there are ideas and I just have to choose between several.

Today has been a day of migraines and thinking once the migraines were over. I wrote about it over at The Kentucky Mountain Girl News, and since I didn’t want to cross-post it to death I am just putting a link here.

In other news of the knitting variety, I have the mitts knitted, now I just need to sew them up and weave in the ends! Now I have to decide what I want to do next!

Today has been a good day. I have knitted and roamed Ravelry for most of the day and just let myself take deep breaths. Yes, it has been another day of relaxing, mostly because a migraine and I have been sparing for much of it – and I won! Well, I don’t have a full-blown migraine. Part of the reason, I am pretty sure, for not having the migraine has been because of the knitting.

I joined two more groups on Ravelry and left two others for no particular reason other than I just wasn’t involved any more.

The fingerless mitts for my friend should be done tomorrow at the very latest. Since this project is almost finished there has been some time spent on deciding what the next project should be. If something doesn’t change, I am pretty sure I will do some spinning on the drop spindle and knitting on a sweater for the hubby as well as maybe a shall for myself. My sister’s scarf is just going to have to wait. I have realized, at this time, lace isn’t where I need to be as far as knitting skill is concerned. I’m not giving up on lace-work or this particular project – just putting it aside for a little while so I can get myself prepared for lace. This particular sister may get a faggoted lace scarf first before anything complicated.

The scarf I have in mind is simple and looks beautiful in my head. I’m going to work on it some tomorrow, if the mitts are finished as I expect them to be, and get things lined out in my head. It is simple “lace work” but I can finish it and get it blocked and to her in time for her birthday. This is my goal at least and I am still going to keep it.

Hubby is going to have to go back into the “craft room” (which is really just a junk room again) for the spindle and roving. There is something about knitting and spinning right now that is helping me to keep my shoulders and neck relaxed, which, in turn, is keeping away the migraines. It is important for the migraines and arthritis not to meet up again like they did this weekend. (It was unpleasant to say the very least.)

On a sad note, actress Lynn Redgrave lost her battle with breast cancer. She was 67. You can read more here

Yesterday was the perfect day to be outside. Today has been the perfect day to be inside: It has rained almost all day and we’ve had two pretty heavy storms. This has added to the knitting desire. Hubby has also played video games and I have knitted, blogged, and just relaxed.